FFormer U.S. President Donald J. Trump was having dinner at the Florida resort of Mar-a-Lago in late December when he and a guest met Representative Elise M. Stefanik '06, RN. Y.) and started praising her grilled food. Former Harvard University President Claudine Gay at the now infamous December 5th Congressional hearing.
President Trump: “She's a murderer.''
Trump's praise for Stefanik at a private dinner, first reported by NBC News, came during a conversation about running mate for the 2024 election. It also served as a warning sign that the second Trump administration could become even more hostile toward higher education institutions.
A spokesperson for President Trump's reelection campaign did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.
Stefanik's questions about gays before the House of Commons education committee and during a Labor committee hearing on anti-Semitism on college campuses were finally answered by her less than a month later. led to his resignation, plunging Harvard into its worst leadership crisis in decades.
As the university's highest governing body embarks on a search for its 31st president, higher education experts and Harvard insiders say the results of the U.S. presidential election will lead to a new head of the nation's oldest academic institution. It is likely to influence who is selected, he said.
Neil L. Rudenstine, who served as Harvard's president from 1991 to 2001, said the congressional investigation initiated by House Republicans posed a “very serious threat not only to Harvard but to many universities.” Stated.
“If former President Trump is re-elected, the situation will become even more serious,” Rudenstine added.
“A person who can protect the basics”
Drew Gilpin Faust was in her ninth year as Harvard University's 28th president when her job description changed almost overnight.
Harvard's president is often considered the chief spokesperson for higher education, but Trump's victory in the 2016 presidential election forced Faust to also serve as higher education's chief spokesperson.
Faust suddenly increased his lobbying efforts in Washington, crisscrossing the country to rally opposition to a Republican bill in Congress that would impose a 1.4 percent excise tax on the endowments of the nation's wealthiest universities. Ta. However, the changing political climate surrounding higher education also appears to be having a major impact, with Faust announcing in June 2017 that: He will step down as president at the end of the 2017-2018 academic year.
Harvard's Board of Trustees announced a gay He must decide who will take his place in the ring.
The prospect of a Trump presidency could further reduce the narrow pool of potential candidates to replace Gay, raising the stakes for the board to select the right leader for Harvard.
Professor Rudenstine said that fielding the next president who is dedicated to protecting the university's research mission is especially important in the face of threats from political actors.
“We need someone who can champion the fundamentals of what the institution contributes, not just to this society but to societies around the world,” he says.
After the university faced accusations that it had failed to combat anti-Semitism, government professor Stephen Levitsky said the university was submissive to current politics and that “moderate to conservative white men, frankly… He speculated that the university would be led by a “probably Jewish president.” On campus.
Even though the next U.S. presidential administration will have a significant impact on the university's next president's term, David R. Gergen, a Harvard Kennedy School professor who has served as a White House advisor to three Republican presidents, said, It would be a mistake to change the term of office.” The current presidential election is taking politics too seriously.
“I don't think Harvard should be deciding who the next president will be based on his relationship with Donald Trump,” Professor Gergen said.
“The people at the Corporation, the people in the search field at Harvard University, know far more about higher education than Donald Trump will ever know,” he added.
“If Trump wins”
Still, the possibility of Mr. Trump returning to the White House will almost certainly keep senior Harvard administrators up at night.
Mr. Stefanik has demonstrated to Mr. Trump and other Republican leaders that targeting elite universities can win support among core conservatives.
Stefanik's political movement, Team Elise, announced that Stefanik raised more than $7.1 million in the first quarter of 2024, a significant number of which went to combat anti-Semitism on campus. She was praised by Trump for the grilling, which was in response to her grilling of Gay and other university presidents over their actions.
“Notably, Rep. Stefanik is taking money not only from traditional Republican donors, but also from Democratic donors who feel that the Democratic Party is failing to combat and denounce anti-Semitism. ” said Alex DeGrasse, Executive Director of Team Elise.
“She will continue to work against the unacceptable rise of anti-Semitism at Harvard, along with other institutions of higher education,” DeGrasse added.
Trump himself directly criticized Harvard over its response to Hamas' October 7 attack on Israel in a post on his social media app Truth Social last November.
“In recent weeks, Americans have watched with horror as students and faculty at Harvard and other once-respected universities expressed support for the barbarians and jihadists who attacked Israel,” Trump said. I feel it,” he wrote.
Trump's comments offer hints about how he will approach higher education, especially Harvard University, if he wins the November election.
In a video post to Truth Social, President Trump said he wants to further tax “oversized private university endowments” to create a national university called the American Academy.
Higher education expert Thomas D. Parker said President Trump's proposal would not only tax Harvard's endowment but also use it to create alternative higher education institutions to further a right-wing policy agenda. He said he has shown what he wants.
“It's going to be like Liberty University, except with state funding and support,” Parker said.
Levitsky said he expects political attacks on higher education to intensify if Trump wins in 2024.
Comparing the current political attacks on Harvard University to the way authoritarian governments attack higher education institutions, Professor Levitsky said, “We have been the target of several Congressional investigations, and with Trump in the White House.'' If we win, we will be exposed to further attacks.”
“As we have seen elsewhere, from Turkey to Hungary and other authoritarian regimes, universities are independent centers of power and particularly prone to be targeted by right-wing populist forces,” Levitsky added. Ta.
When House Education and Labor Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx, RN.C., threatened Harvard with losing federal funding, Mr. Rudenstine said former President Ronald Reagan stripped the university of federal funding. He said he remembered the efforts he had made.
“After the Vietnam War protests in the late '60s and early '70s, the government tried to cut federal funding for all kinds of grants and research and things like that,” Rudenstein said. “Fortunately, Congress held out, and despite President Reagan's efforts, the cuts did not materialize.”
“We've been through this before, and I think it's very likely we'll see it again if Trump is elected,” Rudenstine added.
How should Harvard University respond to external threats?
Efforts are currently underway at Harvard University to protect it from repeating the mistakes of last fall.
Alan M. Garber '76, interim president of Harvard University Harvard University announced the creation of an Institutional Voices Working Group to consider when, or if, it should speak out on public issues. The university also hired former U.S. Deputy Attorney General Sally Q. Yates to represent Harvard in the ongoing Congressional investigation into Harvard campus anti-Semitism.
But while these efforts show the university is better prepared to defend itself against outside attacks, Levitsky said the next president's biggest challenge will be to strengthen Harvard internally.
“It's very important that universities like Harvard aren't bullied by outside forces: by donors, by powerful alumni, by people with big Twitter accounts, by former presidents, and certainly by right-wing politicians.” added Levitsky.
Gergen said he is confident the university will persevere regardless of what happens with the presidential election.
“Harvard will survive Trump,” Gergen added. “However, there is a good chance of damage and it may become more difficult to operate the facility and bring the situation under control.”
“This is a 300-year-old university,” he added. “It won't go away easily.”
Rudenstine said Harvard remains “fundamentally strong” despite the events of the past six months, but the next president will reshape the university's role through public statements and engagement with the press. I believe that we must protect free inquiry by doing so.
The next president must also be “very strong in defending freedom of inquiry, freedom of speech, and research budgets from NIH, NSF, and other sources,” he said.
Fundamentally, universities must protect themselves and higher education as a whole from political attack because of their responsibility to democracy as a whole, Levitsky said.
“Harvard must raise them up and stand up for university independence,” he said.
—Staff writer Aisling A. McLaughlin can be reached at @aislingamcl aisling.mcLaughlin@thecrimson.com.
—Staff writer Madeline E. Proctor can be reached at maddie.proctor@thecrimson.com.
